Satellite Photos Take You Inside Gadhafi’s Compound

The world’s been enthralled for the past week by the battle for Bab al-Azizia, Moammar Gadhafi’s foreboding Tripoli compound. Once inside, Libyan revolutionaries found the detritus of Gadhafi’s violent, eccentric rule: everything from rope gold chains to pervy pictures of Condoleezza Rice.

But the full story of Bab al-Azizia requires a more panoramic view.

That’s where satellite imagery company GeoEye comes in. Using a 0.5-meter resolution from its GeoEye-1 satellite, the company snapped these 15 stunning aerial pictures of Gadhafi’s hideaway, showing the fortifications the Libyan dictator possessed before and after the rebels breached the doors of Tripoli. The images are inlaid with commentary from IHS Jane’s imagery analyst Allison Puccioni making sense of it all.

Consider these photos your own personal way of going Zenga Zenga on Gadhafi.